TaxTMI 
TaxTMI 
2021 (10) TMI 1450
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....dditional Civil Judge (Junior Division) and JMFC Maddur. The complainant, at whose behest the First Information Report "FIR" was registered for an offence punishable Under Section 306 read with Section 34 of the Indian Penal Code 1860 "IPC", and the State of Karnataka are in appeal against the judgment of the High Court dated 29 May 2020. The Single Judge was persuaded to quash the proceedings on the ground that the continuation of the prosecution "would [be] a travesty of justice and be a sheer waste of time", besides requiring the Accused-Respondent "to undergo the rigors of a lengthy trial". A. Facts 2. On 6 December 2016, a complaint was lodged at Maddur Police Station at 20:00 hours by the Appellant who is the brother of the deceased. The complaint narrates that the Appellant's brother was working as a driver for the Accused-second Respondent. The second Respondent is an officer of the State of Karnataka and is employed in the capacity of a Special Land Acquisition Officer "SLAO". According to the complaint, the deceased would travel from Bengaluru once in a month to visit the family home and meet his family and friends. Among his friends was Shashi Kumar. It is....
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....r, poison and a suicide note written by the deceased were found. The suicide note was uploaded by the deceased on his Facebook account through his mobile. The complaint narrates that the suicide note has referred to the illegal activities of the Accused in amassing wealth in excess of Rs. 100 crores, converting black money into white and transferring funds from the bank account of the deceased through his mobile to the accounts of the relatives of the Accused. The complaint alleged that the Accused had threatened the deceased with death and harassed him as a result of which the deceased, having suffered mental stress, committed suicide by consuming poison. 5. The FIR was registered at 20:00 hours on 6 December 2016. The second Respondent-Accused, an SLAO for Bengaluru City, and another driver of his car were named as Accused. The suicide note recorded by the deceased allegedly in his own handwriting contains a detailed narration of the properties alleged to have been illegally acquired by the second Respondent. Besides detailing the properties which were acquired by the Accused in paragraphs 1 to 13, the suicide note refers to: (i) The transfer of funds in several lakhs....
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....note which consists of 21 numbered paragraphs gives a detailed account of the transactions undertaken by the Accused; (ii) For a person who has made such a detailed account of twenty transactions in the suicide note, it can be prudently expected that the deceased would have furnished details of the threats administrated to him by the Accused; (iii) In the unnumbered paragraph of the suicide note "the totally different story" is set out, stating that the Accused threatened to kill the deceased since there was a shortage of cash to the tune of Rs. 8 lacs for which the Accused suspected the deceased to be responsible; (iv) The deceased held the Accused responsible for withholding his salary for three months; (v) Though a query was put to the Government Pleader and counsel for the complainant as to whether the investigation had thrown up any material which corroborated the allegations set out in the suicide note, the GP submitted that "they have not been able to unearth any material to corroborate any of the allegations"; (vi) Though the petition was instituted before the High Court on 18 April 2017, and was pending for over three years, no ....
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....ants he had failed to act sanely; (xx) The conduct of the deceased in attending a marriage in a different town is indicative of the actions of a normal person; and (xxi) How the deceased had sourced the poison was unknown. 10. The judgment of the Single Judge has given rise to two special leave petitions Under Article 136 of the Constitution: one by the complainant and the second by the State of Karnataka. B. Submission of parties 11. Mr. Mahesh Thakur, has appeared for the complainant in support of his appeal. In the appeal filed by the State of Karnataka, Mr. V.N. Raghupathy has appeared and made submissions. The Respondent-Accused has been represented in the course of his submissions by Mr. Sharan Thakur. 12. Mr. Mahesh Thakur, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the complainant urged the following submissions: (i) The matter being at the stage of investigation and the second Respondent having been enlarged on bail, the Single Judge has manifestly erred in quashing the FIR as a result of which the entire investigation has been scuttled midstream; (ii) The High Court has completely failed to notice the seriousness and gravity of ....
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....he deceased which was registered at Ijur Police Station in Ram Nagar District (Crime No. 128/2016) corroborates the averments made in Crime No. 565/2016 of Maddur Police Station. 14. On the other hand, Mr. Sharan Thakur, learned Counsel appearing on behalf of the second Respondent-Accused submitted that: (i) Abetment postulates an instigation and in the context of Section 306, the instigation must be to an extent where there is no option but to commit suicide; (ii) The allegations in the complaint and in the suicide note fall short of the ingredients to establish a case of abetment and hence the essential requirements of the offence Under Section 306 have not been established; (iii) The Single judge of the High Court had furnished reasons for indicating that the allegations contained in the suicide note are inherently improbable; (iv) The version of the complainant is full of contradictions and inconsistencies; (v) The suicide note fails to mention any overt act by the Accused which would have driven the deceased to commit suicide. During the period between 11 December 2016, when the Accused was taken into custody and 29 December 2016....
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....of the Accused; (ii) The Accused having used the deceased's bank account for transfer of funds to his relatives; (iii) The deceased having been threatened by the Accused and by his "house car driver" with death; and (iv) The recovery of the suicide note which was also uploaded on the Facebook account of the deceased; The suicide note in turn provides a detailed account of (a) The wealth amassed by the second Respondent-Accused who was an SLAO, worth over Rs. 100 crores; (b) The second Respondent-Accused having converted approximately Rs. 100 crores into currency notes of various denominations; (c) The knowledge of the deceased with respect the illegal activities of the Accused; (d) The Accused having used the deceased for the conversion of currency notes amounting to over Rs. 75 crores; (e) The payment of the salary of the deceased, who was a driver having been stopped for three months; (f) A threat of murder being administered to the deceased following a shortage in the currency; and (g) The deceased having decided to end his life by consuming poison, having suffered at the hands....
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....ourt in exercise of its powers Under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure does not function as a Court of Appeal or Revision. This Court has, in several judgments, held that the inherent jurisdiction Under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure, though wide, has to be used sparingly, carefully and with caution. The High Court, Under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure, should normally refrain from giving a prima facie decision in a case where the entire facts are incomplete and hazy, more so when the evidence has not been collected and produced before the Court and the issues involved, whether factual or legal, are of wide magnitude and cannot be seen in their true perspective without sufficient material. 20. In Bhajan Lal (supra), this Court laid down the principles for the exercise of the jurisdiction by the High Court in exercise of its powers Under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to quash an FIR. Justice Ratnavel Pandian laid down the limits on the exercise of the power Under Section 482 Code of Criminal Procedure for quashing the FIR and observed: 102. In the backdrop of the interpretation of the various relevant provisions of the Code under Chap....
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.... is manifestly attended with mala fide and/or where the proceeding is maliciously instituted with an ulterior motive for wreaking vengeance on the Accused and with a view to spite him due to private and personal grudge. The judgment in Bhajan Lal (supra) has been recently relied on by this Court in State of Telangana v. Managipet (2019) 19 SCC 87. 21. Based on the above precedent, the High Court while exercising its power Under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure to quash the FIR instituted against the second Respondent-Accused should have applied the following two tests: i) whether the allegations made in the complaint, prima facie constitute an offence; and ii) whether the allegations are so improbable that a prudent man would not arrive at the conclusion that there is sufficient ground to proceed with the complaint. Before proceeding further, it is imperative to briefly discuss the law on the abetment of suicide to determine if a prima facie case Under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code has been made against the Respondent-Accused. 22. Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code provides for punishment of the abetment of suicide: 306. Abetment of suicide--....
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....the Accused by his acts or by a continued course of conduct creates such circumstances that the deceased was left with no other option except to commit suicide, an "instigation" may be inferred. In other words, in order to prove that the Accused abetted commission of suicide by a person, it has to be established that: (i) the Accused kept on irritating or annoying the deceased by words, deeds or wilful omission or conduct which may even be a wilful silence until the deceased reacted or pushed or forced the deceased by his deeds, words or wilful omission or conduct to make the deceased move forward more quickly in a forward direction; and (ii) that the Accused had the intention to provoke, urge or encourage the deceased to commit suicide while acting in the manner noted above. Undoubtedly, presence of mens rea is the necessary concomitant of instigation. 20. In the background of this legal position, we may advert to the case at hand. The question as to what is the cause of a suicide has no easy answers because suicidal ideation and behaviours in human beings are complex and multifaceted. Different individuals in the same situation react and behave differen....
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....he FIR or the complaint are so absurd and inherently improbable on the basis of which no prudent person could ever reach a just conclusion that there is sufficient ground for proceeding against the Accused. Nor is this a case where the criminal proceeding is manifestly mala fide or has been instituted with an ulterior motive of taking vengeance on the Accused. On the contrary, the specific allegations in the FIR and in the complaint find due reflection in the suicide note and establish a prima facie case for abetment of suicide within the meaning of Sections 306 and 107 of the Indian Penal Code. The entire judgment of the High Court consists of a litany of surmises and conjectures and such an exercise is beyond the domain of proceeding Under Section 482 of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The High Court has proceeded to scrutinize what has been disclosed during the investigation, ignoring that the investigation had been stayed by an interim order of the High Court, during the pendency of the proceedings Under Section 482. 27. The High Court observed that a prima facie case for the commission of offence Under Section 306 of the Indian Penal Code is not made out since: i) the suici....
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....ed High Court Government Pleader and the counsel appearing on behalf of 2nd Respondent as to whether the investigation has thrown up any material that corroborates any of the allegations set-out in the death note. The learned High Court Government Pleader would fairly submit that they have not been able unearth any material to corroborate any of the allegations. 39. As discussed above, the death note contains no incriminating statement or material except for a bald and vague statement but that the Accused had threatened him. Even the complaint does not disclose any details of the alleged threat nor does the complaint state that the deceased had on multiple occasions complained of having received threats from Accused. Even the allegation of the demand for repayment of Rs. 8 lakhs rings hollow as neither the prosecution nor the de-facto complainant have been able to place an iota of material that the deceased was or had in fact been in possession of huge sum of money. Further, the observation of the High Court that there is no material to corroborate the allegations made in the suicide note is erroneous since it is not a consideration for the High Court while exercising i....